How My Learning Has Changed

I have written a fair bit about how my teaching has changed. The post I wrote earlier this year generally described three basic stages. At the start of my career I saw myself as a content provider and storyteller. When I became more comfortable with the craft I gave more ownership to students over their learning, which created a range of simulations and role-playing opportunities. More recently, I have searched for more ways on how to do give students ownership and, now, opportunities for real world experiences as well.

Just as my teaching has evolved and changed, so has my learning. Early in my career I was hungry for any and all professional opportunities. This was pre-social media and during the early days of the Internet. I wasn’t that selective, but I did know I wanted to know more and improve. I would read any article or book I was given. I would take gently read copies of Educational Leadership from my principal and vice-principal, and attend any opportunity offered for professional learning — from classroom management strategies and instructional design, to creating a democratic classroom.

As I moved into school administration I loved the big names and the big conferences. It truly was exciting to see and hear the big thinkers on education around the world. And, truth be known, there was something thrilling and honouring in attending these big conferences; the kind where thousands are in the room together — and I was one of them! I sat at tables with some of the key leaders in my district, the province, and the world. We all heard the same message from Michael Fullan to Sir Ken Robinson and had perspectives on where key leaders in our educational world thought we should go. I was sharing the room with edu-celebrities (I liked this word that Chris Wejr used recently, and committed to using it in a blog post).

Having recently attended two well-run, high-profile conferences, I realize these events with the speaker at the front of the room with all of us listening to the same message, no longer really works for me. They are still great events, but I don’t feel they are actually pushing my learning. What I need now is a chance to spend time making sense of what I am hearing — I crave the opportunity to engage with the smart people who are with me in the room. I like Rebecca Rosen’s notion that “The smartest person in the room is no longer a person but the room itself.” I have seen what is possible in the social media era. If I want to watch a speaker deliver a keynote I can watch it on YouTube. If I am going to see that keynote in person, I need to have some focussed engagement with others on what is being said. If I am going to travel to conferences, then I need it to add value — not only to come away with new ideas, but new tools that I have had the chance to try, and the experience I couldn’t have had if I were not there.

I don’t mean to criticize the traditional conference because it DOES have value and there IS something powerful about being in a room of people hearing a similar message. Personally, however, I have moved past the learning options that were available to me a decade ago. So, having also recently attended an EdCamp, I can say there is something between that and a traditional conference that would be best for how I want to learn. And, I am okay with giving up a Saturday (with the promise of a bagged lunch) to sit in a high school to talk teaching and learning.

A couple of TEDx events I attended were also closer to hitting my learning mark, with shorter times for the keynotes and longer times for participant interaction. I am also finding events that bring people together from outside education, other government sectors, non-for-profits, or the corporate world, to be valuable in adding a range of views and perspectives to conversations.

And what else do I find is making a difference? Focussed visits to districts, schools and classes are very powerful, with specific objectives and learning in action and not only in a presentation. I also find the traditional ‘study group’ to continue to have a huge impact on my learning. My first principal, Gail Sumanik, would bring donuts and coffee an hour before school started on Wednesday morning when interested staff would discuss an article, a strategy or part of a book. I have carried this simple structure forward to other roles and find these conversations to be extremely valuable. Another structure that I find valuable is some sort of networked learning – the kind that Judy Halbert and Linda Kaser have led so well in BC for well over a decade.

And yes, I find the ongoing engagement on my blog, the dozens of others I regularly read and other ways I connect in social media, to be very powerful on my learning. I love the opportunities, both face-to-face and virtual, that are about sharing and learning together.

Last, but by no means least, I guess what I want for my learning is what I want for my kids, some form of personalized learning. And, I am realizing my learning has changed, and that I have become a different learner than I was even five years ago.

12 Responses

Thanks for this, Chris. I find myself in the same place with my learning. I do love the conferences as an opportunity to listen to messages by “big thinkers” in education,but I find the ability to talk to my colleagues from around the province the most valuable part of it.

At the conference, Daniel Wilson shared the fact that 30% of our professional learning comes through formal means, such as conferences, and 70% through informal avenues. As I move along in my career, I certainly find those more informal opportunities to be the ones that stretch my thinking. I am currently involved in a book study (How Kids Succeed, by Paul Tough) with a group of teachers from one of our schools. We had our first breakfast meeting yesterday, and I found the conversation interesting and thought provoking, as they pointed out perspectives that I would not have seen by reading the book, or by listening to Mr Tough present his findings.

I think the value of the conferences for me is that they are catalysts for further conversation and learning. I often get people together after a conference and ask about what conversations we can carry forward.

Thanks Andy for linking this to Daniel Wilson’s talk. I do like the shared experience of conferences, but as you rightly describe, there needs to be some thoughtful follow-up or it just becomes a “great event”. There is still something powerful about being in the same room hearing the same message from some of our profession’s big thinkers – but it can’t end there.

Love that you are reading Tough – it seems to be a popular “book club” right now, I have been reading it along with several at work, and I know my friends at Riverside Secondary in Coquitlam are also using it as a book club title right now for their study group.

I agree Chris with your perspective on learning. As we are new in our careers that thirst for knowledge is great and we seek it out wherever possible. I find now that these large conferences no longer excite and motivate my personal growth, although I am a big advocate for people hearing the same message at the same time. Perhaps because I have attended so many conferences in the past 20 years, at some point there is a great deal of repetition. Frankly, I also find that like with our students, I find it difficult to listen when spoken to and unintentionally begin to tune out. Regardless of our age, learning seems to stick when there is hands on or relevancy in what we are learning. I love professional development that allows for small group interactions perhaps after a larger seminar. Lately, I have made more efforts to attend non-traditional learning environments, like the soup kitchen some of my students volunteer at in support of their sobriety, or the ‘Capacity Cafes’ for parents and teens to communicate over teen drug use. I am constantly reminded that just when I think I have heard it all, sitting in an art class or having lunch with some students quickly reminds me I have so much more to learn.

Thanks Sue for the comment. We are really quite familiar with the big themes – we need to move to making them make sense for our context. It ins interesting you note the Capacity Cafes, as those type of events – more non-traditional learning experiences – are also ones that I hear referenced as being particularly valuable.

It always baffled me that the “big names” would always have a new delivery system that promised to revolutionize education but they would be telling me about it while lecturing. Few, if any, did anything but talk the intoxicating talk. Inevitably they walked us through their respective revolutions while lecturing each step. We got excited. School programs were modeled after the new-improved guru’s words and we tried to make those words work in our schools but usually to no avail.

The only expert who really made me permanently change what I was doing was Sylwester and his idea that emotion, any emotion, would hard-wire the experience into a student’s brain. I can still recite his examples and the essence of his message two or three decades later… My provincial results climbed as my participation rates became the best by far in the province. Thank you Dr. Sylwester!

Right on Barry. It is always interesting that those who often speak most loudly about the need to do things differently do so in a way that looks the same as 100 years ago. I have attended many lectures on the need to find new ways to engage learners – we need to model a better way. Thanks for the reference to Dr. Sylwester – a simple yet powerful idea.

Chris, as I read your post, I can’t help but thinking that my learning is usually framed around “learning is a conversation” if we’re not talking we’re not learning. (Sometimes that’s talking to ourselves?) Maybe that’s why at the mega-confernces we get the most during breaks when we are discussing our world views. The best “conference” I’ve attended in the recent past has been unplugged, check it out at unplugd.ca

Thanks – I have heard great things about the unplugged events the last two years. This actually nicely links my last two posts – a uniquely Canadian conversation (I know this past year was a more international event) and professional learning in a very different context. It is these unique models that really seem to be quite “sticky” and memorable for us as learners – kind of like what happens with our students.

Hi Chris. I can absolutely identify with the beginning of this post and the “phases of teaching,” as I am becoming more and more aware of myself travelling through these same portals. Each new year brings new ideas and promises of how I can grow as an educator by revolutionizing some new approach to teaching. Pipe dreams and blog musings often can give way to realities in the classroom and the barriers to implementing groundbreaking – almost science experiment-type – teaching styles. I find myself treating my students more like a soundboard for innovation and less as the empty vessels to fill with ‘knowledge’ – which is good, I think.

I am invigorated by our global online teaching PLN. So many interesting ways to reach students and make a difference in how we do this job each and every day are posted and shared by people in places like this or twitter or online teaching communities. The world will be in capable – and empowered – hands if we, educators, are willing to step into the unknown, let go of “the reins” and see what our students truly need – and want – to learn and prepare for our world.

Wow. A “connected, thoughtful, and engaged community,” that sums up exactly what, I think, we are looking for from our students. So, we, as educators, seek out, read, think, consider, respond, and follow-up on blogs such as yours – that is the scope of how I would truly measure student engagement and achievement on any given task. We are already lifelong learners, but how do we illustrate this – or through which vehicles – so students can enjoy this community-style learning as well?

So, I think we do what we are doing here – we model what this looks like for students. If more adults model the way we are increasingly expecting students to engage, we are well on our way. We are seeing growing groups in our districts of students and adults engaging like this – not as fast as some of us would hope – but continual progress.